


screaming in the sonar

by boasamishipper



Series: and i think it's gonna be a long, long time [6]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Top Gun (1986)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguments, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Making Up, Men Crying, Outer Space, Phone Calls & Telephones, Presumed Dead, Rescue Missions, Reunions, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-28 09:15:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20776154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boasamishipper/pseuds/boasamishipper
Summary: “Kazansky’s missing,”Fury says.Everything in Maverick’s body goes cold. He feels like the very breath from his lungs has been sucked out, leaving him nothing but a gaping chasm of terror. “What?”“He was reported missing three days ago; I just found out today. There were signs of a struggle at his house, and…”Here Fury hesitates, and Maverick knows that whatever will follow cannot be good.“There was a ransom message left on his communicator, Maverick. It was written in Kreeglyphs.”





	screaming in the sonar

Back in the day, he and Ice used to fight all the time. They’d get into loud arguments in the locker room and in the O Club over Maverick’s flying style, over which of them would be Top Gun, over everything. Even after they became friends — and later got together — they still argued, but it was more good-natured, over inconsequential things like music and sports and their students’ chances of victory. Lots of posturing and smiling and laughing. (Those fights often ended with Ice pushing Maverick up against the nearest wall and kissing the breath out of him. Maverick liked those fights.)

Right now, though. Right now, no one is posturing, and nobody’s smiling, and they sure as shit aren’t laughing either.

They hadn’t seen each other in person in eight months, not since Maverick’s mission had taken him and the Skrull into the Outer Reaches. They’d kept in touch through their communicators, but it’s not the same as getting to see Ice’s smile and hear his voice in person, listen to Ice’s heart beating, feel Ice’s arms around him. Maverick had postponed trips home three times, once because he was in the infirmary and Gynara threatened him with castration if he left the bed before he was fully healed, but now — now, finally, when he’d gotten enough time to go back home to Ice, Ice had called him to tell him that the higher-ups at Fallon were asking him to go NAS Pensacola and DC to promote the program for the next month, and Maverick couldn’t come and see him. Maverick, who was tired and irritable and still injured from his last mission, had not taken this well. Ice had not taken Maverick’s obvious irritation well either. And now, for the last hour, they’ve been screaming at each other about it.

_ “You know goddamn well that I have to do this, so stop acting like a fucking child—” _

“Oh, real original. Very mature, Kazansky, I commend you.”

_ “This is my fucking _ job, _ Maverick! What do you want me to do, tell them I can’t go because my space alien crusader boyfriend has finally decided to come and see me—” _

“Don’t pull that shit! _ You _know goddamn well that I’ve got a mission here, that I’ve got responsibilities too—”

_ “And yet you never see me flipping out on you because of you and your mission and your goddamn responsibilities—” _

“You know I always do my best to make room for you—”

_ “Well, thanks so fucking much for your sacrifice, Maverick,” _ Ice snaps. Maverick had enlarged his hologram for the conversation so he wouldn’t have to keep looking down at his wrist, and now he wishes he hadn’t. Ice’s hologram towers over him, his jaw tight from anger. _ “Thanks a lot. I really appreciate knowing how much of a fucking chore it is for you to come and see me.” _

“That’s not what I meant and you know it! Look, I know your career’s important to you, I get it, but sometimes I feel like—”

_ “Like what?” _ Ice’s eyes flash and he tilts his head. It’s a look Maverick has been on the receiving end of many times, and those times have never ended well. _ “Like _ what, _ Maverick?” _

And Maverick, in a move that he knows he’s going to regret before the words even leave his mouth, snaps, “Like you care more about your career than you care about me.”

Silence. Absolute, deafening silence.

“Ice, I…” Maverick swallows hard. Ice is staring at him like he’s never seen him before, the same way he used to when they were rivals and nothing more, and he hates it. “No, I didn’t mean…that’s not what—”

_ “Really,” _ Ice says. The words come out so chilly that the temperature in the room seems to drop twenty degrees. _ “Because you sounded pretty goddamn sure of yourself to me.” _ He steps back, his expression hard and drawn, and when he speaks again, his voice is low, dangerously soft. _ “Is that what you think of me, Maverick? You think I’d rather spend the next month at conferences than see you again? Because I think that’s really fucking funny considering your job took you to the other end of the fucking _ galaxy _ and I never once accused you of valuing putting your life at risk for an entire race of aliens over me.” _

His mouth’s completely dry. He can’t think, can’t breathe. The only thing in his head is just _ oh God oh God no no no _ repeating on loop until it’s sound only. “Ice, no, I—”

_ “Fuck you, Maverick,” _ Ice says. He’s shaking, though from anger or devastation or a combination of both Maverick doesn’t know. _ “Fuck you.” _

And then his hologram disappears, leaving Maverick alone.

* * *

Ice spends the next month going from conference to conference up and down the East Coast. He outlines the benefits of the program at Fallon, different evasive maneuvers and flight tactics. He stays at Pensacola for a week to participate in one of the air shows. It’s a lot of work, and he appreciates being kept busy because it means he doesn’t have to think about Mav.

The first two days after their fight, when Ice had been preparing to leave for his trip, Mav had called him about a hundred times — presumably to apologize, but Ice hadn’t answered, and he hadn’t taken the communicator with him on the trip either. If Mav really believed the worst of him, then Ice didn’t want to hear whatever excuses he had come up with.

(God, to think Mav actually said he thought Ice valued his career over Mav. As though Ice didn’t love him to distraction. As though all those years he’d thought Mav was dead, Ice wouldn’t have given up anything, including his career, just to have him back.)

The communicator’s still in the same place Ice had left it when he comes home, right on the kitchen table. The screen is filled with tiny green dots, each one representing a voice message, and it takes him aback. Had Mav been calling him nonstop for the last month?

Before he can stop himself, he unlocks the screen and starts listening.

_ “Ice, it’s me. I know…I know you’re mad at me. You’ve got every right to be mad. I just, I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said. Call me back. Please.” _

_ “Hey. You’re probably on your trip now, I…I hope it’s alright. Bet the brass are just as boring on the East Coast as they are in Fallon. I-I, uh. You’ve probably hung up by now, I don't blame you if you have. But if you’re still listening, I’m sorry. For everything I said. Please call me.” _

_ “Fury says he’s watching Chewie for you. He also says that he gets why you’re mad at me. I get it too. I just…please. I don’t want to have ruined everything for us. I regret what I said every day. I…I guess you already know that from the messages, though. If you’ve even been listening to them. It’s okay if you haven’t. But…I love you. And I’m sorry.” _

It goes on like that, message after message, day after day. The screen starts to blur from the tears in his eyes. “Oh, Mav,” Ice whispers, his voice breaking. “Baby.”

That’s it. He’s let himself be angry long enough; he’ll call Mav back. He’s willing to work this out if Mav wants to, and Mav clearly wants to. Ice picks up the communicator, swiping through his contacts and landing on Mav’s name, and—

_ CRASH. _

Ice’s head snaps up, his entire body instantly tense and thrumming with adrenaline. “Who’s there?”

There’s no answer. But now that he’s not distracted by the communicator in his hands, he can feel the presence of somebody else in the house, and it makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He’s not alone. 

Slowly, he sets the communicator down and gets to his feet. Makes his way across the kitchen, stopping only to grab one of the chef’s knives from the silverware drawer. He’s completely on edge as he steps into the living room, scanning for trespassers—

Something slams into him, knocking him to the floor and the wind out of his lungs. Somehow he manages to keep his grip on the knife steady and jabs it blindly at whoever had knocked into him, but his attacker grabs his wrist and pins him to the ground, which sends the knife clattering out of his hand. Jesus, their grip is like iron, and Ice yells and kicks up, right into their stomach.

His attacker hisses in pain and Ice uses their temporary distraction to scramble backwards, get back to his feet. He grabs the knife off the floor — though he has no idea what he’s going to do with it, he doesn’t want to kill anybody, even this bastard who’d broken into his house — and then something crashes into the side of his head.

He must have passed out, just for a second, because the next thing he knows he’s on the kitchen floor, on his stomach with his legs tied together and his hands tied behind his back. There’s a gag shoved in his mouth, preventing him from speaking. There’s blood trickling down the back of his neck. Things are sluggish, the voices around him mostly indistinct.

“—Flerken’s not around, is it?”

“If it were, we’d have been eaten by now. Just like the last ones who tried this.”

The floor creaks, and someone kneels next to him. It’s too dark and his head hurts too much to make out the details of their face, but Ice would know the dark green and silver of a Kree Star Force uniform anywhere.

“Is he still alive, Commander?”

“He is,” says the person kneeling next to Ice. Their voice is strangely familiar, and it sends shivers down Ice’s spine. Where does he know this person from? The only Kree he’s ever met are long dead, so this can’t be— “Knock him out, Korr-Vak. And get me his communicator.”

Something pricks the side of his neck, and Ice’s world goes dark.

* * *

“Hey, Ice. It’s me.”

Maverick stops, wondering — not for the first time — why he’s even bothering. Ice hadn’t called him or answered any of his messages since their fight, and the last month had been the loneliest of Maverick’s life. He’d thrown himself into his missions because there was nothing else to do, and ignored Gynara and Talos and Soren’s attempts to talk to him. He’d ruined the best thing that had ever happened to him, and now he had to suffer the consequences.

“Ice.” He stops, bites back tears of guilt and regret. “I’m sorry for what I said. I know it’s not true; I was just angry. I’m sorry. Please just…just talk to me, Ice. _ Please. _ I miss you.” He scrubs a hand down his face. Whispers, “I love you.”

No response. He hadn’t expected one (it’s a voice message, after all), but it still hurts.

“I’ll call you again later,” he says quietly. “Even if you don’t answer. You don’t have to. Just know that I love you. And I’m sorry.”

* * *

The buzzing from his nightstand slowly draws him back into consciousness, and Maverick groans, burying his head into the pillow. A glance at his clock tells him it’s two in the morning, which is way too early to be doing anything but sleeping. Whoever’s calling him can wait until—

Calling him?

He grabs the communicator off the nightstand, and his heart stutters when he sees Ice’s name on the screen. Ice is calling him. He hasn’t heard Ice’s voice in more than a month, or seen his face, and Maverick doesn’t even care why Ice is calling him in the middle of the night, just that he’s doing so again. He slides the communicator on his wrist and pushes the button that activates the holocomms, but the relieved grin drops off his face as suddenly as it had arrived when the hologram that appears over his wrist isn’t of Ice, but of Fury. “Fury?”

_ “Hey, Maverick.” _

“Hey.” It had been Ice’s name on the screen, hadn’t it? Or had he just imagined it due to his exhaustion and wishful thinking? “…Are you calling from Ice’s communicator?”

_ “Yes.” _ Fury’s face is an exhausted mask of concern. _ “Are you sitting down?” _

“What?” His heart crawls into his throat, and he pulls the covers up to his chest just to have something to hold onto. “Yeah, I’m sitting down. Why? What’s the matter?”

_ “Kazansky’s missing,” _ Fury says.

Everything in Maverick’s body goes cold. He feels like the very breath from his lungs has been sucked out, leaving him nothing but a gaping chasm of terror. “What?”

_ “He was reported missing three days ago; I just found out today. There were signs of a struggle at his house, and…” _ Here Fury hesitates, and Maverick knows that whatever will follow cannot be good. _ “There was a ransom message left on his communicator, Maverick. It was written in Kreeglyphs.” _

* * *

“Who the hell are you?”

The man sitting on Ice’s front steps startles so badly that he drops his cup of coffee all over the sidewalk. “Jesus Christ,” he says. “Who the hell are _ you?” _

“I asked you first.” Maverick had left the Cruiser less than an hour after he’d hung up on Fury, only stopping to explain things to Talos and Soren and change into his uniform. He’s aggravated and terrified and hasn’t slept or eaten anything in thirty-six hours, and is _ not _ in the mood for small talk. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?”

“This house is a crime scene,” the man snaps. That must make him a police officer, which would fit with the three police cars lining the street and the yards of yellow caution tape criss-crossing over the front of the house. “How the hell did you get past security? Hey, wait a minute!” Maverick had started to push past him into the house, ducking under the tape, and the police officer grabs his arm. “You can’t go in there; didn’t you hear me?”

“I heard you.” Maverick yanks his arm out of the other man’s grip. “I just don’t give a shit.”

“Listen here, you—”

“Maverick!”

Both the police officer and Maverick whirl around to see Fury coming up the sidewalk to the house, Coulson at his side. For the first time in thirty-seven hours, Maverick feels himself relax.

“It’s alright, Officer Parker,” says Fury, flashing the man a reassuring smile. Strange how Fury can go from utterly intimidating to charming in the blink of an eye. _ Must be the eyepatch. _“He’s with me.” He leads Maverick into the house before Parker can protest, which is probably why Coulson had stayed outside; explaining the impossible and distracting civilians is his specialty.

The house, thankfully, is empty, but Fury hadn’t been lying when he’d said there were signs of a struggle. The living room is a mess; the coffee table is overturned, and there are shards of a broken lamp scattered all over the floor. The kitchen isn’t much better, but it’s clean, and when he and Fury sit down at the table, Chewie makes a beeline toward them, abandoning the toy mouse she’d been sullenly tearing apart.

Maverick bends down to scratch her behind the ears. “Hey, kitty,” he whispers. “It’s been a while.”

Chewie meows mournfully and bumps her head against his hand a couple times before settling at his feet. Probably blames herself for not being there to prevent this. Maverick can relate. _ God, _ can Maverick relate.

“Tom asked me to watch her while he went on his trip for work,” Fury says quietly, and Maverick nods, because he knows that. “I think whoever did this was waiting for Chewie to leave so they could take him.” He sighs. “Though from the looks of it, he didn’t go down without a fight.”

The theory — and Fury’s use of the past tense — makes Maverick’s stomach turn. Ice is still alive. He has to believe that. He _ needs _ to believe that. “Where’s the message they left?”

Fury takes Ice’s communicator out of his pocket and sets it on the table between them. “Only Kree word I know is your name,” he says. “It’s addressed to you.”

Maverick’s stomach turns again, this time even more violently, and only the remaining ounces of his self-control keep him from bringing up whatever is still in his stomach. He turns the communicator on and swipes through the voice messages box, which is empty except for two messages: the ransom and the one Maverick left a couple of days ago. Ice probably hadn’t even listened to his messages before deleting them, Maverick thinks, and he swallows back tears. That’s fine. It’s _ fine. _Ice can hate him all he wants as long as he’s still alive to do so.

He clicks on the message, and a hologram of a message pops up — sure enough, written in Kreeglyphs. “Chell,” he reads aloud, praying that his voice will remain steady. “If you ever want to see the man you love again, come to Torfa no less than a week from today. We are willing to exchange his life for yours. If you refuse…” He has to stop, take a breath. “If you refuse, we will see if we can spare enough of Iceman Kazansky for you to bury.”

The silence stretches on for what feels like an eternity. “So,” Fury says at last. “What’re you going to do?”

“I’m going to go to Torfa,” Maverick says. His voice is as cold as it’s ever been. There is no warmth left inside him anymore. “And I’m going to kill them all.”

* * *

Ice wakes up, and immediately wishes he hadn’t.

Everything aches. His mouth tastes like something had crawled in there and died fifty years ago, and his head throbs like an entire gym class had been using it as a soccer ball. His surroundings slowly come into focus as his eyes adjust to the darkness of the room. Stone ceiling and walls. The drip of water echoing somewhere in the distance. A general, unsanitary stench. His hands are chained above his head, and his feet are chained to the ground; he can’t move. Definitely some kind of holding cell. A dungeon.

_ Son of a bitch. _

“Finally awake, are you?”

Ice’s head snaps up, which immediately makes him hiss in pain. Leaning against the wall, draped in shadow, is a man in a Kree Star Force uniform. The same man who’d attacked him in his home, who the others had addressed as Commander, whose voice had sounded strangely familiar. He scowls, hiding his pain and fear and confusion behind an ice cold mask. “Who the hell are you?”

The man laughs. “You’re an interesting man, Commander Kazansky, to ask that before anything else,” he says, and Ice fights the urge to flinch. How did this asshole know his rank? “My, how surprised you look. Yes, I know your rank. I know everything about you.” His voice drops, goes low with loathing. “And I know _ exactly _ how much you mean to Chell.”

“Congratulations,” Ice snaps, even though his heart is starting to pound against his ribs hard enough to shatter bone. “So you know who I am. Now answer my question. Who the _ hell _ are you?”

The man starts laughing again, this time louder, like he’d just heard the best joke of the century. “How quickly we forget,” he says, and steps out of the shadows. The dim light streaming in from a window above Ice’s head illuminates his face, which is cruelly handsome, heavily scarred — and half of it is made from chrome, gleaming in the light. One eye is clearly fake, tinted yellow with a glowing red pupil. Jesus fucking Christ. A quick glance at his extremities shows that his hands are made from metal as well, and probably his legs as well, though they’re hidden beneath his pants and combat boots.

And yet, despite it all, Ice does know him. It might have been five years, and he might be more metal than man now, but Ice would know this man — the man from too many of Mav’s nightmares — anywhere. “Yon-Rogg?”

The side of Yon-Rogg’s face with a human mouth grins, and it’s _ terrifying. _ “So you do remember,” he says, almost casual, like they’d just run into each other at the supermarket. “How nice.” His remaining eyebrow goes up sardonically. “Surprised to see me, _ Iceman?” _

Ice is too stunned to respond in kind. “I don’t understand,” he manages. “Mav killed you. He said he killed you, I — how are you alive?” _ And what the hell happened to you since the last time I saw you? _

“Oh, don’t you worry your pretty little mind about that,” Yon-Rogg purrs. He’s even less stable than Ice remembers him; forget foreboding, this guy’s a complete psychopath. He strolls forward, stroking the side of Ice’s face with his metal hand, and Ice hisses from the cold. “The real question is, what fun am I going to have with you?” He moves his hand lower, to Ice’s chest, and then plays with the zipper of Ice’s pants, and Ice recoils as much as he’s able. Yon-Rogg smirks. “Tell me, Iceman, how does Chell treat you in—”

Ice spits in Yon-Rogg’s face.

The saliva goes straight into Yon-Rogg’s fake eye, and Yon-Rogg howls in pain as sparks jump out of his eye and down his cheek. For a second, Ice wonders if it’s really going to be that easy, if Yon-Rogg’s going to collapse, but then Yon-Rogg yanks his own eye out of his head, and the sparks instantly stop. He cleans it methodically against the fabric of his uniform, his mouth frozen in a rictus of pain, and then pushes it into the empty socket like he’s putting in a contact lens. And then, quick as a flash, his metal hand goes flying off his wrist and pins Ice to the wall by the throat.

“If I wanted to, Iceman, I could destroy you,” Yon-Rogg says, and Ice can barely hear him over the sound of his own desperate gasps for air. His vision is starting to go dark at the edges. “I could beat you to an inch of your life, make you beg me for mercy. I could hook you up to the Supreme Intelligence and have it wipe your mind. Erase your memories. Make you my slave, in every way possible.” The tiny part of Ice’s brain that isn’t screaming for air is engulfed in terror and the kind of determination that only comes at death’s door. He’ll never be Yon-Rogg’s slave. He’ll kill himself first. “Lucky for you, all that is beneath me.”

The metal hand returns to Yon-Rogg’s wrist with a click, and Ice _ gasps, _ gulping down lungfuls of air as the edges of his vision slowly return to normal. Jesus. Jesus Christ. He’s crazy. Yon-Rogg is crazy, and he needs to get out of here. He needs to get out of here now. “Mav…Maverick will…come for me,” he forces out, doing his best to glare daggers at Yon-Rogg as he moves to Ice's side. “And he’ll…make you…pay.”

Yon-Rogg smiles. “That may be so,” he concedes. “But how much of you will be left for him to retrieve?”

Ice opens his mouth to tell Yon-Rogg to fuck off where the sun doesn’t shine, and then something pricks the side of Ice’s neck, hard.

At first nothing happens, but then he feels his lungs starting to constrict, like he can’t get enough air. His skin feels hotter, like he’s being boiled alive from the inside, and an agony hotter than fire spreads throughout his body from the place where the syringe had pricked his skin. He’s thrashing in the chains that hold him tight as jagged blades of pain slice through every inch of him, burning through his veins, clawing apart his bones and sinew and his resolve.

Ice screams. And screams. And screams.

* * *

“Soren, for the last time, I’m not letting you come with me!”

“And for the last time,” Soren says, “I don’t care.” She crosses her arms over her chest, and Niamh, who’s almost sixteen now (Skrull age much faster than humans, he’d learned) and standing right beside her mother, does the same. “We will not let you go down and face the Kree without backup.”

Maverick finishes zipping up his uniform and turns back to her. “They took _ Ice, _ Soren,” he snaps. “They took him to get to me. And I’m not letting you risk your life over a fight you don’t need to be involved in.”

“Why not?” Niamh retorts. “You do that all the time.”

And — yeah, alright. That’s fair enough. While he’s trying to think of a good comeback, Soren presses on. “We’re already flying you there,” she says, which is also true. Not in the Cruiser, because that’s too dangerous what with all of the Skrull aboard, but in a smaller hoverjet that Talos had stolen and revamped a couple years back. “Let us help you, Maverick. Let us help you save him.”

_ If you refuse, we will see if we can spare enough of Iceman Kazansky for you to bury. _

Maverick shudders. It had already been five days since the Kree had kidnapped Ice, and he knows he doesn’t have time to argue. “Fine,” he says at last. “You can help. Suit up. Let’s go.”

* * *

Torfa is almost exactly the same as Maverick remembers. Dark skies, dusty ruins, hardly any grass or signs of life or any natural resources other than the Daxam Sea. The ransom message had left coordinates for Maverick to follow, but Maverick knows exactly where he’s supposed to go: to the valley where his old Star Force squadron had massacred the Skrull all those years ago. 

He orders Soren and Niamh to stay behind with the hoverjet, at least for now, and promises to signal them when he needs backup. He has no idea if the Kree will kill Ice on the spot if Maverick doesn’t show up alone, and he doesn’t intend to find out.

For all of his plans to kill the Kree with his bare hands if they’d harmed Ice in any way, Maverick knows there’s a very real possibility that he’s not going to make it out of here alive. They had asked him to trade his life for Ice’s, and as long as Ice is alive and safe, Maverick can handle anything the Kree want to do to him.

When he reaches the valley, two Accusers come up to him, brandishing their weapons. There are more soldiers stationed around the landscape, he notices, hiding behind boulders and ruins and up in the mountains, and he lets the Accusers lead him to the edge of the valley, where a man in a Star Force uniform stands with his back to Maverick, surveying the mountains in the distance.

“The dissident is here, Commander,” says one of the Accusers, and Maverick rolls his eyes. _ This guy’s really got a talent for pointing out the obvious. _

“Thank you, Korr-Vak,” says the commander, and Maverick’s blood freezes in his veins. He knows that voice. He knows that voice, but it’s not possible. It _ can’t _ be possible.

And then the man turns around, and Maverick almost screams. Jesus. Fucking — Jesus Christ. It is Yon-Rogg, but not at all the Yon-Rogg he remembers. He’s more metal than man now, almost like a cyborg. The half of his face that’s still human is heavily scarred, and both of his hands are made of metal, and — God. This has to be a nightmare. “Yon-Rogg,” Maverick says shakily. “I thought you were dead.” _ I thought I killed you. _

“You know, your charming little friend said the same thing,” Yon-Rogg says, his voice seething with hatred. “I did die, Chell. You did kill me. But the Supreme Intelligence…refused to let me go.” His metal hands twitch, and Maverick — somewhere deep down — actually feels sorry for him. “I fell out of favor with Star Force, with the Supreme Intelligence. I was given to the Accusers as a weapon. And I have spent the last five years trying to figure out how to make you feel an _ iota _ of the pain and suffering I went through.” His sneer is fresh and ugly, like an open wound. “And then I realized…I never had to hurt you at all. The only way to hurt you…was to hurt your love.”

Maverick grits his teeth so hard that he feels something in his jaw crack. “Well, I’m here,” he says, trying for some bravado to hide his terror. “I’ll make the exchange. My life for Ice’s. Where is he?”

Yon-Rogg snaps his fingers, and Maverick holds his breath as another group of Accusers come by — but they don’t have Ice with them. Instead, they’re holding two green bracelets, humming with power. “Don’t look so taken aback, Chell,” says Yon-Rogg. There’s a strange undercurrent to his voice that Maverick hadn’t noticed before: something metallic. Had they replaced his entire body with chrome and wire? Is there anything human left of him? “These will block your powers. They are to ensure you won’t back out of our little agreement.”

“Fine.” It’s fair enough. Besides, Maverick doubts that any Kree technology can keep him from tearing Yon-Rogg apart if he tries to keep Maverick from Ice. He slides the bracelets on and doesn’t feel any different, but when he tries to summon his energy to his hands nothing happens. He’s not even scared; it’s all going to be worth it when he gets Ice back. “Alright,” he says. “You’ve got me. Now let Ice go.”

An evil grin slowly unfurls on the remaining half of Yon-Rogg’s face. “I would,” he says. “If there was anything left of him to give you.”

One second Maverick’s fine, still determined, still ready to fight, and the next he feels like he’s in a jetwash, crumbling away, in a flat spin heading out to sea. “No,” he whispers. His entire body is trembling, his blood and bones and soul crying out, _ No, this can’t be happening, he’s lying, he’s lying, it’s not true. _ “No! You’re lying. You said — we had a deal! My life for his!”

“Oh, Chell,” Yon-Rogg says, almost like he’s disappointed. “When have you ever known me to keep my promises?”

He’s shaking so hard now that his legs barely have the strength to keep him upright. Tears burn the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill, and he can taste copper in the back of his throat, a sure sign that he’s going to throw up. “I don’t believe you,” he manages. “You’re lying to me.”

Yon-Rogg’s eyebrow goes up, but he clicks a button on his communicator, pulling up a holographic video and enlarging it so everyone can see. Horrified, Maverick can do nothing but watch as Yon-Rogg presses play. The Yon-Rogg on the screen injects something into Ice’s neck, and Ice’s screaming fills the valley, echoing across the land. He’s sobbing and screaming like he’s being torn apart from the inside, and Maverick can’t help him, and it _ hurts. _ It hurts so badly that it’s almost a mercy when Ice finally goes limp, dangling from the chains holding him. His chest no longer rises or falls. He’s motionless. Lifeless.

“See,” Yon-Rogg says. “Had you been quicker to arrive you might have had the chance to save him.” He steps forward, crouching next to Maverick — and when had Maverick’s knees given out from under him? How long had he been on the ground, silent and stunned and devastated, watching the love of his life be tortured and murdered?

Had Ice believed Maverick would come for him? Had Ice thought of Maverick in his last moments? Had he still hated Maverick for the words he regretted saying more than anything?

_ Ice. No. Please no, please God no. Not him. Not him, please— _

“What, no tears to shed?” Yon-Rogg mocks. “And here I thought you loved him, _ Maverick.” _

Hearing his name come out of Yon-Rogg’s mouth is so jarring that something in Maverick _ snaps. _ “You killed him,” he whispers. His voice is hoarse and strange, foreign to his own ears, and his grief is ebbing away, fading into a soul-encompassing rage. _ “You killed him!” _

The air around him begins to smoke and sizzle, heat warping the world. The bracelets around his wrists begin to melt, and energy courses through his body, taking him over. He’s screaming something, words maybe, but there are no words left in him, no breath. He is energy, he is rage, and rage does not need to breathe. The only thing he needs is revenge.

The Accusers are charging at him while Yon-Rogg shouts something, and Maverick _ screams, _ and a wave of energy unlike anything he’s ever produced comes spiraling out of him, hitting the Accusers full on. It doesn’t knock them down or kill them, no. Their skin starts bubbling and melting away, and they’re screaming now too, writhing on the ground in agony. Good. Let them scream. They’d killed Ice, now let them scream.

He marches forward on legs that do not feel like his own and grabs Yon-Rogg by the throat, lifting him off the ground. “You killed him,” he snarls. Yon-Rogg’s trying to scream now but can’t, not with Maverick choking him, not with the energy radiating from his hands melting the metal of Yon-Rogg’s new body. “You killed him, and now…” Maverick feels a truly evil smile of his own spread across his face. “And now I’m going to kill you.”

Yon-Rogg is thrashing in Maverick’s grip, the human half of his face turning puce, trying to choke something out — an apology, maybe, or another lie — but Maverick can’t hear him. His grip tightens, the metal corroding away to reveal wires and sinew and blood. Blue blood that trickles down Maverick’s hand as the last remnants of Yon-Rogg’s life disappear. Maverick drops his body onto the ground, and then blasts it to pieces for good measure.

Maverick is all deadly energy, spiraling upwards and outwards. He is not human. He is not Kree. He’s nothing. Has nothing left worth being.

Ice is dead.

Maverick screams.

* * *

Niamh has always been proud of her ability to notice the little things, even when nobody else does, and right now, she’s never been more grateful for this talent of hers. She’d noticed that there was a cluster of Accusers gathered in the ruins one ridge over from them, and she and her mother had immediately set off to investigate. The soldiers had been disposed of easily, and Niamh had almost fainted when she saw Iceman Kazansky chained to the wall; bruised, bleeding, one wrist broken and half out of its handcuff, but still very much alive.

Soren gets him down and Niamh gives him water, splints his wrist the way Gynara had taught her. It’ll have to do until they can get him to the bacta tanks in the infirmary. “What happened?” she asks, horrified that anybody could treat an innocent person like this. “What did they do to you?”

“Injected me,” Iceman says. His voice is hoarse, like he’d wandered through the deserts of Jaakar for years without drinking anything. “They injected me with…with something. Thought it was going to kill me. Then I tried to get out, and I broke my wrist.” He lifts it up, winces. “And then I got the shit kicked out of me for trying to escape.”

“By the guards outside?”

“Yeah.” He grimaces. Niamh notices a ring of bruises circling his throat and wants to throw up. The Kree are such brutal savages. “Yon-Rogg didn’t want to get his hands dirty.”

The communicator drops from Soren’s hands. “Yon-Rogg?” she repeats. Suddenly she doesn’t look as hypercompetent as she normally does in the field; she looks terrified. “He’s here? He’s alive?”

“Unfortunately. And looking like the Tin Man’s evil twin brother.”

_ “Krath-la,” _ Soren curses. “We need to get Maverick and get out of here.”

“Maverick?” Iceman grabs Soren’s hand with his remaining one, looking desperate. “He’s here?”

“Yes, he’s here. He came to save you; they left him a ransom note on your communicator. He was going to do an exchange—”

“His life for mine, I know. They aren’t going to go through with it. I heard Yon-Rogg talking when he thought I was knocked out. They’re going to ambush him and take him back to Hala by force, hand him over to the Supreme Intelligence. We have…we have to save him.”

Iceman struggles to his feet, but five days of being chained and forced upright have left his muscles weak, and Niamh scrambles up to catch him before he collapses. “We will go after him,” she promises. “You have to go back to the hoverjet; you’re in no shape to—”

“I’m not going to sit in the hoverjet and twiddle my thumbs, Niamh. Either you take me with you to save Maverick or I’ll crawl there.”

His expression is deadly serious, and Niamh believes him. She glances over at her mother for guidance, and Soren sighs. She rummages in the medkit for a moment before pulling out a vial, and she takes Iceman’s hand and tips a little of the powder into his palm. “Put this on your tongue,” she says.

Iceman gives Soren a wary look. “What is it?”

“Dryna powder. One of my husband’s inventions. We take it when we’re on stakeouts; it’ll wake you up and get you moving.”

Iceman still looks skeptical, but he licks the sparkling silver dust off his palm. The effect is almost instantaneous: his eyes go wide and his pupils dilate briefly before he shakes his head, getting his focus back. Niamh lets him go, and he’s able to stand on his own. “This feels weird,” he mutters, putting a hand to his head. “What’s in this stuff?”

“Talos will be happy to explain it to you back on the Cruiser,” Soren says. She gets to her feet as well. “It’ll only last a few hours. Come on. Let’s go.”

* * *

That dryna powder is no joke. Ice feels more awake than he ever has in his life, and the state of hyperfocus he’s found himself in makes it easy to ignore his aching muscles and the fact that he hasn’t slept or eaten much in the last five days. All he can think about is Mav, and prays to every God he knows that Yon-Rogg and the Accusers won’t hurt him before Ice has the chance to see him again. To apologize.

The hoverjet pulls up at the coordinates, and the first thing Ice notices is the bodies strewn all over the ground. Some of them are still twitching, in the last throes of life, but most are already dead. Their skin is burnt to the bone, melting and charred and crumbling away, like they’d been hit by the universe’s most powerful flamethrower. And in the center of the valley, something is on fire — no, not something, he realizes with a dawning horror. Someone. Mav.

Mav is a supernova. His entire body is alight, waves of orange and blue energy spiraling off his skin and shooting fifty feet into the air. His eyes are glowing so brightly that Ice can’t even see his pupils, and he’s screaming. It’s a howl of pain and agony and sorrow, masked by wrath, and it’s endless.

And it’s _ terrifying. _ Ice has never been scared of Maverick Mitchell before, not on the ground and not in the air, but this…this is something else. It’s like Mav’s not even himself anymore, just energy and deadly rage personified. He can feel Niamh and Soren exchanging nervous glances behind him, and Ice steels himself. Someone needs to get through to Mav, and it’s going to have to be him.

“Mav?”

The valley instantly goes as quiet as the grave. Ice can hear his blood pounding in his ears, can feel the tension thrumming in the air.

“Mav.” He takes a tentative step forward, his hands raised in a gesture of surrender. “Mav, it’s okay. It’s me.”

Mav’s eyes lock on his, and it takes every ounce of willpower Ice has not to flinch. He tries to remember that this is the man he loves more than anything, that there’s a human beneath the rage and sheer power somewhere. He just has to find him again.

“It’s me,” he says again. He moves forward until there is less than a foot of distance between them. He can feel the energy rippling off Mav’s body, making the air around them warp and sizzle, and he tries for a smile. “You gotta calm down, Mav. You’re scaring Niamh and Soren.”

No response. Not even a flicker of recognition.

“Mav, say something. Please.” Ice feels himself starting to lose his patience. “Damn it, Maverick, say something so I know it’s still you in there.”

“…Ice?”

The word is barely a whisper, but it comes out so much like a plea that Ice’s heart constricts and all of his impatience evaporates. All he can do is nod.

A second passes, just long enough for that to sink in. And then Mav lunges at him, tackling him with enough force to send him to the ground. There are alarmed shouts from Soren and Niamh, and Ice imagines them raising their weapons, wondering if they should shoot.

Mav is still glowing, but he’s not attacking. He’s clutching Ice like a lifeline, his face buried in Ice’s chest. He’s making this awful keening noise, high and broken, and his shoulders are wracked with painful sobs, and all Ice can do is hold him close and try to soothe his pain away.

“Ice, I-I thought…oh Jesus, Ice, I thought—”

“Shh. Shh, baby, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

“You were _ dead. _ They told me you were dead.”

Understanding crashes down on him like the stock of a Kree rifle, followed by utter horror. Jesus. They’d told Mav he was dead. And judging by the bodies of Yon-Rogg and the Kree soldiers strewn on the ground, Mav had believed them.

“Well,” Ice manages, because the thought of Mav losing control like this all because he’d believed Ice was dead is too hard to contemplate right now, “I’m not. I’m here, Mav. I’m right here.”

This has the precise opposite effect he’d hoped for. Instead of calming down, Mav dissolves into tears and clings to him even tighter. With every sob, the energy around him dissipates, leaving him human again — or at least as human as it’s possible for him to be. Finally, he forces out a broken whisper: “I thought I’d never see you again.”

Ice’s throat is uncomfortably tight, and he’s close to tears himself. “Don’t worry,” he says at last, once he’s sure he can speak without breaking down. “I’m not going anywhere.”

* * *

_ “Attention all, this is Talos speaking. Clear all decks between the loading bay and the infirmary. Repeat, clear all decks between the loading bay and the infirmary.” _

Gynara throws aside her book of crossword puzzles — one of the fascinating human inventions she’d become obsessed with during the six years she’d hidden on the Cruiser waiting for instructions from Mar-Vell — and yells for one of her nurses to launch the emergency protocol. By the time the landing crew arrives, everyone’s mobilized and standing at attention.

Niamh sprints into the room, clutching the stitch in her side, and Soren follows her daughter, pushing a gurney with two men on it into the operating room. Maverick’s unconscious — and is he glowing or is that Gynara’s imagination? — and clinging tightly to a blond Terran that Gynara immediately recognizes as Iceman Kazansky. Iceman looks like complete and utter shit: he’s bruised to hell and back, there are open cuts on his face and neck that look like they’re infected, his wrist is broken and thankfully splinted, and he’s unconscious, his chest weakly rising and falling.

“What in the seven hells of Skrullos happened to them?” Gynara demands of Niamh, who immediately stands at attention and begins reporting. Good girl. If this infernal war ever ends, she’ll go far.

“Maverick’s unconscious, I think he’s in shock,” Niamh says. “He went nuclear and blew up every Kree soldier on the planet. Iceman’s worse for the wear; he was tortured by the Kree. Broken wrist, mostly bumps and bruises. Got injected with something.” _ Note to self: run a tox test. _ “Hasn’t slept or eaten much in the last few days. He passed out a few minutes ago, but I think that’s ‘cause the dryna powder wore off—”

“You gave the Terran _ dryna powder?” _ Gynara’s jaw drops, and she whirls around because that idiot stunt has Soren written all over it. “When he was in this state? Have you lost your mind?”

“He refused to let us go after Maverick without him, Gynara,” Soren snaps. “What was I supposed to do, knock him out and lock him in the hoverjet?”

_ “Krath-la, _ Soren,” Gynara curses. The things she has to deal with. “Liya! Get the bacta tanks ready!”

“On it!”

“Is he…” Niamh bites her lip, looking — for the first time that Gynara can remember — all of her sixteen years. “Is he going to be okay?”

“He’ll be fine,” she says. Gruff, but honest. “He passed out because the dryna-stimulated adrenaline rush wore off, and he wasn’t in a healthy state to begin with. He’s exhausted. We’ll give him fluids and fix up his wrist, and he’ll be alright. Just needs some rest.”

Soren and Niamh give twin signs of relief. “Good,” Soren says. “That’s good.”

Gynara nods, running a hand over her scalp as Liya and the other orderlies extricate Iceman from Maverick’s grip, take him off the gurney and onto another one, wheeling him into the room that houses their bacta tanks. An hour or so in there will get Iceman’s wrist and bruises and potentially infected cuts fixed up good as new, and then she’ll ask Liya to run a report to make sure there’s no internal bleeding or any other complications. “Now,” she says. “What the hell do you mean Maverick went nuclear?”

“He lost control,” Soren says. “I’ve never seen anything like it. He was pure energy, a supernova. He passed out on the way here; he’s completely drained. Couple days of rest will probably do him some good.”

Gynara lets out a heavy breath. She’ll ask Maverick how he managed to regain control (and why he lost control in the first place) once he wakes up, but she’s got a feeling it begins and ends with Iceman Kazansky. “Wheel him into the next room, his usual bed,” she tells Hylla. “I’ll be in to examine him further in a few minutes. And put Iceman in the bed next to him once he’s out of the bacta tanks.”

“Got it, Doc.”

While Hylla does as ordered, Gynara glances over at Soren and Niamh. “You two alright?” she checks. “No internal bleeding, no broken bones, no dramatic Maverick-style injuries?”

“We’re alright,” Niamh says. Soren nods.

“Good,” Gynara says. She picks her lab coat up off the chair, putting it on and rolling up the sleeves. “I’ll go look Maverick over; you two get some rest. I’ll fill you in on the remaining details when the two of them wake up.”

* * *

Maverick rejoins consciousness with the grace of two planes crashing into each other, his blood pounding against his brain and his breaths coming in short, panicked gasps. Everything’s a blur, and he feels like all of the energy in his body has been sucked dry, and when he tries to summon his powers he can only manage a few faint sparks. Something had happened. Something bad. What’s wrong with him?

Then there are hands on his chest, gently pushing him back down, and a familiarly exasperated voice telling him to take it easy, to breathe. Gynara. He’s on the ship. He’s in the infirmary. “Maverick,” she says, and her face slowly comes into focus as his panic ebbs. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” he grunts, but it comes out more like _ ymph. _His voice is so hoarse it feels like his vocal cords have been replaced with sandpaper. “Gynara, my…my powers, they’re not—” 

“They’re fine, Maverick. You’re fine. You drained yourself pretty badly out there. Give it a few days and everything will go back to normal.”

And then, just like that, it all comes flooding back to him. The ransom. The exchange. Torfa. Yon-Rogg with his Terminator body. Losing control. Ice, dead. And yet… “Ice,” he groans, struggling even harder to get up now. “I need — Ice, where’s—”

“He’s alive. He’s here; turn your head.”

He turns his head to the side, and the sigh of relief that goes through him makes his chest burn. Ice is asleep in the bed next to him, and he…he looks fine. His wrist is bandaged, and there are a few bruises on his arms and face, but he’s alright. He’s alive. Thank every last star.

Gynara goes through the usual routine with him — even though Maverick would much rather keep looking at Ice than answer questions about his vitals and how he’s feeling and what happened on Torfa — and eventually, finally, she says she’ll leave him be, and tells him to push the call button if he’s in any pain or when Ice wakes up. Maverick acquiesces, and Gynara leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

Maverick forces himself out of bed, moving on numb legs and collapsing in the chair next to Ice’s bed, taking Ice’s hand carefully in his. Feels his pulse, strong and steady, just to be sure he’s real.

“Shouldn’t our positions be reversed?”

Maverick startles so badly that he almost falls off his chair. “What?”

The corner of Ice’s mouth quirks upward. His eyes are still closed, but he’s awake, and he’s talking. Even though his voice is a little raspier than normal, it’s the best thing Maverick’s ever heard in his life. “Shouldn’t I be the one holding the dramatic bedside vigil?”

Maverick’s smile is so wide that it takes up his entire face. “You woke up too late.”

“Damn.” Ice blinks blearily up at him, still smiling a little. Maverick’s eyes sting, and his own smile fades. “You okay?”

“Me?” Maverick’s laugh is less of a laugh than it is an incredulous sob. “Who gives a shit about me? Yon-Rogg had you for five days, he and the Kree tortured you.” There’s a faint ring of bruises around Ice’s throat, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened there. “I thought…God, Ice, I thought you were…”

“Mav,” Ice says softly. “I’m here. And I’ll get better. I’ll be okay.”

“You shouldn’t have to get better. This shouldn’t — I’m the one who’s — you’re always supposed to be okay. You’re always supposed to be safe.” Every emotion that he’d shoved down over the last five days comes bubbling to the surface, and his voice breaks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Ice.”

He doesn’t just mean for Ice’s kidnapping and the torture, and Ice knows it. “I know,” he says. “I got your messages.”

Maverick stiffens. “You listened to them?”

“All of them.”

Tears burn his eyes, spilling down his cheeks despite his best efforts to stop them. “…Are you still mad at me?”

This pause seems to last an eternity, choking all the air out of his lungs. And then Ice shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Not anymore.”

He feels like he can breathe properly again for the first time in over a month. “Really?”

“Yes,” Ice says. “Really.” He moves his hand out of Maverick’s, and, wincing, opens his arms. “C’mere, baby.”

Maverick does not need a second invitation. He throws himself into Ice’s arms — as gently as he can make himself, anyway — and buries his face in Ice’s chest, listening to the steady beat of Ice’s heart as Ice holds him close. Nothing had ever felt so right.

“I’m sorry,” Ice whispers, and Maverick startles again.

“What? Why? What do you have to be sorry for?”

“For not hearing you out. I know you didn’t mean it, I was...I was just angry. I’m sorry for hurting you.”

“It’s okay,” Maverick says, because it is. “I’m just…I’m just glad you’re alive.”

They stay together, holding each other and sharing a comfortable silence. Indeterminable minutes pass by.

“Mav.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you really lose control because you thought I was dead?”

The memory of burning up with grief and rage and utter devastation makes his insides go cold. He clutches the front of Ice’s shirt a little tighter, just to remind himself that Ice is still here, and nods. “I wanted revenge,” he admits, his voice muffled a little. “I wanted to kill them all for killing you.”

“And you did.”

“And I did,” Maverick says. Not that he feels any regret whatsoever about killing all those Kree. “It wasn’t…it didn’t feel like enough, killing them. I was…” Had Ice not brought him back to the ground, he probably would have kept going and going until he burned himself into ashes, and he wouldn’t have cared. “I would have burned the world for you, Ice.”

Ice’s breath hitches, and his hand stills in its motion of stroking Maverick’s back. Then he says, “Come here.”

Maverick frowns, lifts his head up. “What?”

Ice shifts to the side, and though the bed’s small, there’s enough room for Maverick to lay down. He climbs into bed, entwining his legs with Ice’s, and lowers his head so it rests in the hollow of Ice’s shoulder, against his chest. Ice turns his head a little, enough that Maverick can feel the faint brush of his breath in his hair, and he relaxes.

“M’not hurting you, am I?”

“No.” Ice’s breathing slows and evens out, like he’s about to fall asleep. “M’okay. Just tired.” He gives a laugh. “That dryna powder’s no joke.”

“What?” Maverick’s suddenly wide awake. “Who gave you dryna powder?”

“Soren,” Ice says. “Don’t blame her. I made her. I had to come and save you, and it was either that or having Niamh carry me.”

“Oh.” Well, that definitely explains how Ice had been able to stand up and hold him back on Torfa after being tortured for five days. Still, Maverick makes a mental note to tell Soren to leave Talos’s inventions for the people they’re actually made for. “Well, you did,” he says. “Save me, I mean.”

“And you saved me.”

“Hey, Soren and Niamh did most of the work. I just killed half the Kree army and cried on you until I passed out.”

Ice snorts. “Still,” he says. “We’ll call it even.” He feels Ice press a kiss to the top of his head. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Maverick closes his eyes, making himself comfortable. They’ll handle all the details of Ice’s cover story and getting him back to Earth tomorrow, he decides. Or later. Sometime later. Much later. For now, he’s just going to close his eyes and stay here, safe and warm and content, and appreciate that the cold ache of loneliness and misery that had plagued him for the last month is finally gone.


End file.
